BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:researchseminars.org CALSCALE:GREGORIAN X-WR-CALNAME:researchseminars.org BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:James Martel (San Francisco State University) DTSTART:20221109T170000Z DTEND:20221109T180000Z DTSTAMP:20260417T105325Z UID:Metagov/123 DESCRIPTION:Title: On "Anarchist Prophets: Disappointing Vision and the Power of Collective Sight"\nby James Martel (San Francisco State University) as part of M etagovernance Seminar\n\n\nAbstract\nIn my talk\, I am going to consider t he internet as a potentially anarchist space. I will begin by distinguishi ng anarchism from what I like to call archism\, the main mode of political and economic organization that is so ubiquitous that it doesn’t usually even have a name. Archism is hierarchical and dominant. It includes many variants like capitalism\, liberalism and fascism. Anarchism\, when placed besides archism changes from being simply the name of a particular Europe an tradition of leftist thought to something more like the infinite other ways that a community could organize itself besides the top down (or faux democratic) model that we generally see. \n\nWith this distinction in mind \, we can see that the change from so called “public” to “private” modalities of regulating the internet make no real difference insofar as both public and private partake in archest forms of logic and organization . Although the internet has long been touted for its revolutionary potenti al\, in practice it has been completely (or nearly completely) coopted and commercialized. \n\nI will talk about how and if the internet can realize its potential as a properly anarchist space\, perhaps one of the most sig nificant anarchist spaces available in the West. Insofar as anarchist form s of organization require a forum in which workers and political participa nts can meet to hammer out the kind of self governance that they wish to e ngage in\, the internet always has the potential to offer just such a foru m. As long as it is captured by commercial interests\, right wing ideology and consumerism\, the internet will remain largely what it is\, an arches t space with anarchist aspects but that does not mean that it is condemned to permanent archism. I will make some suggestions about how this space c an be reclaimed for the anarchist potential that the internet has always h ad (regardless of the original intentions of its founders) but which is ra rely recognized\, so eclipsed is it by commercial and other forms of repre sentation.\n LOCATION:https://researchseminars.org/talk/Metagov/123/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR